I talked here about the power of iteration and rapid prototyping (rather than just working super hard on stuff and hoping people will like it). Here are a few more references to this topic that I have found super valuable.

Talking to Humans

Talking to Humans is a super great book by Giff Constable, and is available in several formats, as well as on his website for free (as of this writing). While other Lean Startup resources kind of talk about how to do customer interviews, I have not found any other place that really goes into sufficient detail in terms of the process, to feel like it really told you all you needed to know.

Once again, you can apply this process to:

• Making sure you’re building the right product or service
• Tweaking and refining what you’re doing
• Making sure you have the right messaging tor reach the people you want to serve
• And so on

 

Pretotyping

This is a term (as opposed to prototyping) that was coined by Alberto Savoia, who I learned about in Episode One the Standford Innovation Lab podcast. He has a whole website devoted to it and an affordable e-book. I just think he’s really good at articulating the value of prototyping (or pretotyping). You can apply this to your website, your talk, your lemonade stand, or whatever.

Dane Maxwell

So I learned about this guy on this episode of the Smart Passive Income Podcast, and it’s really amazing. If you ever wanted a clear picture of how to design a business that works, listen to this guy.

He is motivated by the process of solving problems. “People get stuck because they are ‘me’ focused. “What are my passions? What are my skills?” Completely flip it around and become customer focused. Become passionate about improving their life.